Tis the season

Previous occupant of my office had some Christmas decorations stashed in the office so I decided it was time to put them up. Thanks Faithe, I have gifts for under the tree.

First taste of winter

And we didn't like it. Cold, wet, miserable. Seems way too early to break out the jackets and gore-tex. but if someone was wishing for a white Christmas they might be happy.

Is Winter far away

It is certainly getting colder here, the walk back from the shower can be rather brisk. Last night it rained and this morning we woke to snow on some of the surrounding mountain peaks. Cold I can take, I would be happy if the snow and rain didn't encroach on our little camp.

Thanksgiving Dinner

So the DFAC (Dining Facility) set up a nice Thanksgiving meal. Nice change of pace. It isn't home, but it is our little slice of America in Afghanistan.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you are sharing it with family and friends. Enjoy the holiday. We took some time off to celebrate the holiday as only we could. We had a Turkey Trot, actually a climb to the top of one of our hills. Stopped for a group photo, and then headed down to chow. They did a nice job of decorating the chow hall (forgot my camera). Food was ok, no lack of pies and they had bottles of sparkling grape juice set out on the tables. Paper plates and plastic ware rounded out the setting. After a late lunch a group broke out musical instruments for a jam session, a welcome change from the usual. Enjoy your day.

Dining Experience

lucky for you I didn't take pictures. Earlier this week we visited the mess halls of our Afghan partners down the hill. Talk about scary. Hygiene, nope, sure they don't have that word in the kitchen. Cooking is done over gas burner in 20 gallon pots, stirred with very large wooden spoons. Cleaning, I didn't witness it. After walking thru the second facility we were invited to eat lunch. Several of our group decided to disappear. The officer mess hall, was just that, a mess. They did brush off the scraps and began to set out food. Large plates of rice with beans and meat (no I didn't ask what kind). It was rather tasty, and the flat bread was edible. There were some plates passed around that I didn't try and nobody drank the water. We were with the General and his staff so I am sure we got the best they had. But after seeing it made, well it was a challenge to set down and dig it. Nobody got sick, and do appreciate our dining facility a little more.

Yes, its crowded out there

As you can see in the pictures Kabul is crowded, traffic, people, and houses built where ever there is an open piece of ground.

City Streets

A week ago, give or take 10 days, time is difficult to track here, I took a trip to the other side of the country to look at a training base and its suitability for our partners, the Afghan Special Forces. So I became a passenger in our convoy to the airport, thought you might want to see the local traffic and some of the businesses along the way.

You met people in the strangest places

We've known Merrily for over 10 years, haven't seen her in ages, but knew she was in country. Contacted her when I got on the ground and arranged to do some training for her team from the embassy. They arrived the same day as the fire, but we conducted training and their team had a great time. It was good to see her after all these years. Odd how you meet people along the way. On my team is someone I went to Special Forces Qualification course back in 1992, only saw him once in the interim. We were both Sergeants at the time, now he is our legal adviser. Another guy joined the unit a year ago, but we were in the same company in Ohio and deployed to Kuwait back in 2002. Some of the others on the team I have worked with for 5+ years. Makes it nice, we have a lot of shared pain, suffering, and misery.

Where have I been

We had a fire a week ago. Woke up at 3:45 am to people running down the hall banging on doors and yelling fire. Jumped up threw on some pants and shoes to find a blaze roaring across a couple of buildings down the row. A couple of soldiers trying to fight it with fire extinguishers, not making any progress. We don't have a fire department, had some fire fighting equipment but no training. The little fire mule spent its load in minutes with no measurable effect. We did have a small fire truck but didn't have much luck getting it to work. By this time the ammo in the building started to cook off and we had to pull back. Had several vehicles parked in front of the building but their keys were in the building. They started to melt, so we tried dragging them away from the flames. It was a constant battle, thought we were going to lose the entire row of buildings, but we got crews working on all 4 corners and I was running to each station to direct traffic. We got in touch with the afghan unit and their fire truck. They got up here and the truck was empty so had to send them to get water. We were able to keep the adjacent building wet down and started pulling down the inter-connector to stop the spread. We got a water tanker from the afghan army about 6 in the morning and used it to suppress the fire. I was pretty horse by the time we got it under control, I didn't even tie my shoes for the first hour. The fire mule was smoking, too close to the fire, I jumped on it and drove it out of the way, it wasn't until the next day that I realized how hot it was, melted one side, lucky I didn't stick to the seat. It took 5 days to restore power, just got the site cleaned up today. Don't know how long it will take to rebuild. I could have went the entire deployment without that excitement.

Weekly Hike

Within the confines of the Afghan base we live on there is a number of large mountains. We are housed at about 6,100' above sea level and the ring of mountains rises to 7,000'. A loop around all the mountain tops is about 6 miles in length. Very steep and rocky in spots, but as long as it is dry there are no real problems hiking the "ring". Some of the distant mountains already have snow on them, hope we get another month without.

Office

Yes the living quarters are small and the showers and toilets require a walk outside, but my office is nice enough. And besides, I spend the majority of my time in the office.